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When creating a pay-per-click ad (PPC) ad, it is easy to overlook the importance of the display URL. However, search engine marketers have only a limited number of lines of text to work with and should take maximum advantage of each of them. This article summarizes the results of an eye tracking study and reviews the findings of two other tests of display URLs. The eye tracking study demonstrated that the display URL in PPC ads captures a significant portion of the gaze time allocated to the ads. The results of the other two tests showed that display URLs can have a meaningful impact upon click-thru rates.

The results of the eye tracking study confirmed that the display URL is an important component of a PPC ad. The display URL captured a significant portion of the time people spent looking at each PPC ad, as shown in the tables and heat map below. For PPC ads served above the organic listings on the left side of search engine results pages, the display URL garnered over three times more gaze time (0.53 seconds) than the text description (0.15 s). Further, the display URL in PPC ads in the top position on the page above the organic results received the same amount of gaze time as the headline, 0.65 s.

Average gaze time (in seconds) per visit to a Google search results page:

The general location of a PPC ad on the page had a significant impact on the gaze activity the URL received. Not surprisingly, the display URLs of the top three ads on the left attracted more attention than the URLs of the top three ads on the right. Display URLs presented on the left received almost three times as much attention (0.53 s per URL) as URLs on the right side of the page (0.19 s per URL).

The length of time spent looking at a URL also varied by the specific position of the ad. The URL located within the first ad was looked at the longest while the URL within the third ad was looked at the shortest. This was true for ads on both the left and right sides of the page.

Within ads on the left, display URLs received, in general, more attention (0.53 s) than the ad text descriptions (0.15 s) but less than the ad headlines (0.70 s). This is not surprising because in those PPC ads, the display URL is located to the left of the text, directly below the headline, which makes it more prominent than the description text but less prominent than the headline.

On the other hand, URLs within ads on the right received less attention (0.19 sec) than both the headlines (0.27 s) and ad text descriptions (0.30 s). The display URLs for ads on the right are the least salient ad elements, as they are presented at the bottom of the PPC ad, below the text description.

Heatmap showing aggregated participant gaze activity during one of the twelve searches in the study (the redder the area, the more attention it received):

Adding Descriptive Keywords to Display URLs May Reduce Click-Thru’s

Understanding that display URLs receive a significant amount of gaze time is not simply a branding issue. The display URL can be altered in attempts to improve results. The most common manner in which this is done is by adding descriptive keywords to the end of the domain name. A Google employee in account management actually encouraged us to test this tactic.

In our experience, adding keywords in front of the domain name fails in the majority of cases, particularly for domains that have significant name recognition and brand equity. However, adding keywords at the end of the domain name increases click-thru rates often enough that it is worthwhile to test.

Shown below is an example from a test of display URLs. The three ads are identical except for the display URL. The goal of the test was to determine if adding “eye tracking” to the display URL would increase the click-thru rate of a PPC ad promoting User Centric’s eye tracking service. The first ad simply features the domain name as the display URL, the second ad includes the keyword term added to the end of the domain name, and the third ad includes the keyword in front of the domain name.

Eye Tracking Research
Measure user gaze activity. Get a
full analysis, not just heat maps.
EyeTracking.UserCentric.com

In the test of the above PPC ads, the version featuring only the domain name produced the best results. Adding the keyword “eye tracking” at the end of the domain name in the second ad resulted in about a 5% decrease in click-thru rate, which was not surprising. The most dramatic result of this test was that adding keywords in front of the domain name decreased clicks by over 25%! Not to mention that our ISP charged a fee for an extra top level domain name.

Another drawback of adding descriptive keywords to a display URL is that this form of “keyword stuffing” may reduce the branding value of a PPC ad by cluttering up the display of the domain name.

Domain Name in Display URL Has a Major Impact on Click-Thru Rate

The value of an identifiable domain name in a display URL was highlighted by a test conducted for iNest Realty. Their parent company, RealEstate.com, is a much more recognizable domain name. The test was conducted to determine the impact of using the stronger brand name in the display URL of PPC ads. The test ads are shown below. The only difference between the two PPC ads is the display URL.

Utilizing RealEstate.com in the display URL resulted in a 20% greater click-thru rate for the bottom PPC ad. Based solely on that information, it might appear that the bottom ad was the winner. However, the ad’s conversion rate was abysmal. In order to comply with Google guidelines on display URLs, a landing page had to be created for this ad on the Real Estate.com server. The page was co-branded for both iNest and RealEstate.com. Visitors did not like the experience of clicking on an ad with one display URL and then seeing information about a different brand. Thus, iNest was paying for a 20% increase in clicks, while generating fewer conversions. If the test had not been ended quickly, it would have been an expensive lesson on the importance of providing users with a good experience. However, the test provided a good demonstration of the positive impact a recognizable domain name in the display URL can have upon click-thru rates.

Conclusion

The results of our eye tracking study and the other two tests show that display URLs are an important component of PPC ads. Modifying display URLs as a test poses a danger of reducing the branding value of a PPC ad by cluttering up the display of the domain name. However, the potential long-term benefit of acting upon a successful test can easily outweigh the short-term cost of a failed one. Thus, for many PPC advertisers, a closely monitored display URL test is likely a worthwhile effort.

Links to Additional Information

The following web pages provide additional information on display URLs in PPC ads:

About the Author – Randy Pickard is Vice President for Product Innovation for User Centric, Inc. User Centric is a leading user experience research firm. Randy’s focus is on the intersection of user experience and search engine marketing. He has been optimizing web sites for usability and search since 1996 and is a regular speaker at search conferences, including SES - San Jose and Chicago.

About RandyP —
Randy Pickard is a pioneer in the field of optimizing websites to achieve high organic search engine rankings and in utilizing paid sponsored ads to gain top of search engine results page placements. He has been designing web sites to obtain high rankings since 1996 and bidding on sponsored keyword terms since 1999. Currently, he is the President of Exceptional Shopping Sites and the editor of Internet Marketing Remarks.

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Comments
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Here's something else to watch out for when using custom display URLs in your ads: make sure you redirect these to the right landing pages if the displayed subdirectories don't already exist on your site. It's definitely the exception, but apparently there are some people who copy the display URL (example.com/keyword) rather than clicking the big ol' linked and tagged headline in the ad. I've repeatedly seen a small fraction of type-in traffic coming directly to URLs that appeared only in PPC display URLs and nowhere else. If someone types out your fake, keyword-rich URL from the bottom of your ad, don't lead them to a missing page.

My team had wondered about this and had been talking to our development team about creating some system to automatically create redirects from our display URLs - the sheer quantity of ads we have meant doing this manually was never going to be an option. I then had the opportunity to do a bit of research into how many people actually do copy and paste display URLs that don't actually exist. Over a five-month period the number of instances of this amounted to 0.01% of the actual clicks we got. To get the point, I think this is really good advice and should definitely be followed if it's easy to do so, but if it's going to require an investment, the case for it might not really be there.

It would have been interesting to test the effect of a www.realestate.com/inest display URL - you get the brand awareness of realestate.com but also the consideration of the iNest brand.

The iNest case study does emphasize the importance of working closely with the consumer marketing team - any increase in brand awareness potentially lowers CPC/CPA for the search marketing team. In fact, we've even had some success in asking consumer marketing to shorten a product's (new) slogan so that it can fit into our Google PPC ads!

Something to remember when you consider the brevity required in Google and places like Twitter and Facebook...

Hi Rand, nice post, i recently did some analysis of brand Vs. generic domain name on a medium sized PPC campaign and it came back with a clear result that generic domains specific to that keyword industry massively out performed the branded version of the domain...this is my findings http://www.leewoodman.co.uk/blog/25022009/346697/citys-info-on-generic-domains/

The adverts were run simultaneously over a 3 week campaign and the results were vastly different, the two domains Swansea.info and netCardiff.co.uk were run with the same advert creative and a maximum cost per click of £0.10. netcardiff.co.uk received a CTR rate of around 13% where as Swansea.info was consistently receiving a CTR of 56% which is an almost unheard of figure in any main stream PPC campaign. The domains are specifically targetted at the tourism sector/city information and Swansea.info in my opinion hits the nail on the head for what users are looking for and according to the results above the users agree.

This is an excellent article. I've been thinking a lot about display URLs (and actual URLs) lately and have even swapped/mirrored sites for PPC campaign purposes, just to buy and use a better URL. If possible, a generic, descriptive URL can be a killer in PPC, it can contain your keywords which get automatically bolded, and really drive home the point. The display URL is just another headline and in my opinion it may be MORE important than the headline!!!!

Randy, Nice post, we have done some pretty basic tests about Display urls using Generic or descriptive domain names against brands with the same ad, same bid, etc , particulary in the travel industry and CTR´s on the ad using the generic domains ( city names) were , sometimes, 10 times higher than the branded ones !, You bet is something pretty powerfull to take advantage of...,

This eye tracking stuff fascinates me. And it's another point in favour of generic domain names (there are so many valid reasons for choosing one over a coined domain).

I recently published the results of a study I did testing the effect of using a generic domain name that's an exact match to the niche covered by the Adwords campaign vs a non-specific, "coined" domain name.

For the purposes of the study, all other factors (ad headline, body copy, bids, landing page etc.) were kept constant - the only factor that was varied was the domain name.

My tests showed that an on-topic domain (ElectricBicycles.co.uk - the chosen niche was electric bicycles) outperformed a semi-generic domain (YourBikes.co.uk) and a coined non-generic (InAHurry.co.uk) by generating up to twice as much traffic as the alternatives. This came from a combination of higher CTR and more impressions (Google rewarded the generic even though the campaign was set to serve ads more evenly)

I've written up the study in detail, including statistics for each ad variant, performance charts, a look at click distribution vs ad position and some analysis and conclusions.

I think that capitalizing the first letters of the URL is a really good way of increasing CTR, but i have noticed that Google doesn't allow such action anymore I have tried several times, It will show capitalized on your account but it's actually not on the search engine results ...

Great post, you provide a lot of helpful information regarding PPC advertising. Pay Per Click advertising is essential to any website that is trying to build up your traffic flow and increase profits. If your are interested in further knowledge of PPC advertising then you should check out <a href="http://www.dalaigroup.com/ppc-pay-per-click.html">DalaiGroup</a>

So, what you're saying is that if I put a link, like http://www.sequim-real-estate-blog.com in the actual post, it's going to get more attention than if I href it, like <a href="http://www.sequim-real-estate-blog.com">real estate</a> in the content?

Definately helpful information, suprising at first that it gets so much visibility but when you come to think about how people actually read the web and skim the top, bullet points, and then look at the bottom it actually makes sense.

Thanks for the information, its very interesting. Do you have any figures for the change in conversion rates for ads with an extra subdomain or trailing directory ?

I wonder if the extra keywords are acting as a filter, and preventing people clicking on "www.randomdomain.com/Widgets" if they aren't interested in widgets. If so, then you'd see the CTR drop, but the number of conversions might not.

This could give you the opposite effect to your iNest vs. RealEstate example - you get the same sales, but at a lower cost.

But is it worth creating more redirects? I try to avoid creating redirects, if possible. My URLs are too long to fit in a ggle ad. So would you recommend creating them anyway, redirects that is? Is the value that significant?

Great post Randy, always love to see these eye tracking studies and your write up is very good, almost like reading a lab report!

The one thing I would like to see added is some information about the participants, their regular search usage levels, search skills etc. Just helps to get a better idea of the generalisations that can be assumed from the results.

I have played around with both variations in the past, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't!

Normally the domain names I have been advertising are not big brands, so I focus my branding element mainly when a customer lands on the site, and try to get as high a percentage as possible click through from the advert.

Thanks Randy, Daniel, and Mark. You have all given me something to think about.

I am working on a new client campaign now, and I think I will do an extra version of each ad with the keyword in the display URL. I have tried the keyword in the URL but not the same ad in each version. What I did not think about doing and should have, was redirect the URL properly. I do use custom 404's but that is not the same as re-directing to the right URL.

Sorry to say, we did not test "keyword stuffing" of display URLs during the eye tracking study, so no data is available. The learning that display URLs garner as much gaze activity as they do was a mildly surprising result discovered during a review of the results of the study.

First of all, why would you have to pay a fee to your ISP for an extra top level domain on the third (EyeTracking.UserCentric.com) ad? The display URL doesn't have to be valid, as long as you own the TLD. In other words, EyeTracking.UserCentric.com does not have to exist, therefore you wouldn't have to pay for it. And why would you have to pay for a subdomain anyway?

Second, Its hardly a fair test if you're changing the ad text. Ads 1 and 2 have the same, where 3 has an entirely different one, with a significantly altered message.

I have to say, I've had a ton of success adding the main keyword as a subdomain for the display URL. Especially for eCommerce stores, as in Ice-Skates.MikesSports.com. Of course, a recognized and trusted domain should probably get their name right out in front, as in SportsAuthority.com.

In regard to purchasing an extra top level domain name, please see Mark Alves comment above. BTW -- the cost was so minimal as to be barely worthy of consideration.

In regard to the test ppc ads, mulitple text and headlines were tested with the display URLs. In User Centric's experience, the tests of putting the keyword in front of the our domain name failed in each case. However, as you indicate, the results may be quite different for an e-commerce site.

I'd be interested in the methodology. When you sit the subjects down for the eyetracking test what are they told to do? Also what's their past internet experience?

I think I tend to skip over the ads but will look at a URL if the title looks interesting - is there some problem in the method in that the subjects know they're supposed to be checking something about search quality and so will perhaps dwell on URLs in case they're missing something (because they want to appear knowledgeable?)?

I'd have thought spammy URLs might get a longer look as you're trying to work out if you trust the site based on the URL and there are more compnenet to look at and assess.

Lastly, on a different point, couldn't you have sniffed the request URL to know whether to serve the iNest or RealEstate content? (even if they're on the same page you could do a page scroll with javascript, eg http://demos.flesler.com/jquery/scrollTo/ ).

In regard to the display URL test conducted by iNest, we considered it important not to harm our parent company's brand. Thus, if a viewer clicked on a Real Estate.com display URL, it seemed important to take them to a RealEstate.com co-branded page. We delivered visitors to a co-branded landing page that was created for the test . However, the co-branded page added an extra click to the experience, and diluted the branding of both websites. Not only did visitors not click over to the iNest server, very few of them continued onto additional pages on the RealEstate.com server. Determining how to provide a good user experience while delivering visitors to a different website than they are expecting is a challenge that we were unable to overcome.